Sunday, August 6, 2017

Kremlin Moves to Kill Off Last Vestiges of Federalism in Russia

Paul
Goble

Staunton, August 5 – Over the last
month, the Kremlin’s decision not to extend the power-sharing agreement with
Tatarstan has sparked a great deal of discussion even though that accord immediately
affects only a single federal subject. Indeed, it has generally been treated as
Moscow’s final step toward doing away with federal arrangements set up in the
1990s.

On the one hand, the Russian
government is preparing legislation that will give Moscow “universal bases” for
unilaterally stripping the authority of any region, a move that would leave the
federal subjects not only as the creation of the federal center but also as
complete dependencies on the whims of the center.

And on the other, Moscow is moving toward
a system in which the heads of federal subjects would become little more than governors
general whom the center would appoint and give military ranks and who would become
cogs in the military machine of the state rather than officials elected by the population
as the Russian Constitution requires.

As summarized by the Kasparov.ru
portal, the draft law would “make possible the seizure of authority” from the
regions by Moscow “if on the territory of the region, the federal organs are realizing
the very same by content authority that the regional authorities of executive
power are” and if this would allow the government to save money.

The measure also allows Moscow to
take over if it decides this is necessary “for the achievement of measures of
the defense of the country and the security of the state” and also for ‘international
and all-national measures” or if natural disasters or some other emergency
situation arises in a particular region.

Thus, the proposed law which given
that it is backed by the government almost certainly will be approved will
provide a legal framework for Moscow to take powers away from the regions any
time it wants, thus legalizing what in fact has been happening under Putin and
making it likely that Moscow will make even more moves in that direction.

The second development concerns a
new law which makes changes in the Russia’s law “On defense” that Vladimir
Putin signed ten days ago.As Nezavisimaya gazeta pointed out on
Friday, these changes are “only the visible part of an enormous iceberg almost completely
concealed from the curious eyes of both enemies and friends” (nvo.ng.ru/realty/2017-08-04/2_959_red.html).

The newly approved
amendments formally make the heads of regions more responsible for national
defense, something the center has been talking about since 2015; but in fact,
the paper suggests, they are another step toward the integration of the
governors into the defense machine of the state and reducing them to its cogs.

That is because the measures not
only allow the center to control them by monitoring their activities in terms
of national defense but also open the way for them to be given military ranks
and thus becoming as it were Moscow’s “governors general” in the regions subject
to military discipline rather than the at least nominally elected
representatives of the people.